A Purpose-Driven Marriage – Marriage Message #172

We want to ask you, do you have a “purpose-driven marriage?” For some interesting thoughts on the subject, which were written by Dr. Fred Lowery in his book, Covenant Marriage: Staying Together for Life, please read the following:

Here’s an important principle every married person, and every person thinking about marriage —should know: A good marriage doesn’t happen by accident. In fact, to survive amidst all the pressures, pains, and pitfalls of life in the twenty-first century, a marriage today must be more proactive and more intentional than ever before. It must be purpose-driven.

What does it mean to have a purpose-driven marriage? It means that you and your spouse have a basic understanding of the kind of marriage you are trying to build and what it will take to make it happen. It means that you are willing to work together toward that common goal. But most couples I talk to in premarital counseling haven’t got a clue what the purpose of their marriage is.

When I say to the typical prospective groom, “What is the purpose and goal of your marriage?” he shifts his feet around, and finally says, “I don’t know. I just love her” (which is a hormonally driven expression for, “I want sex without guilt”).

When I ask the typical bride-to-be the same question, she rolls her eyes, giggles, and utters a few words in fairy-tale language about finally finding her “Knight in shining armor.” (That’s female-speak for, “I am being rescued from my home by one who will wow me and worship me for the rest of my life.”)

In a magazine article titled “Marriage: What’s the Point?” author Susan Dixon admits that she stood at an altar in a beautiful white gown and said “I do” without having the slightest idea of what she was getting herself into.

“It took nearly twenty-five years and a divorce before I began to understand something I should have known before that ceremony ever took place,” she writes. “In the quarter century that has passed since I naively repeated my wedding vows, I’ve become more and more aware that relationships die for lack of purpose. If there is no valid, defined, and acknowledged purpose for our relationship-chances are we’ll have trouble keeping it alive.”

Do You Know what is the purpose of marriage? What is the purpose of your marriage? Do you have a well-defined purpose? Do you know where your relationship is headed? Do you know where you want your marriage is headed? Do you know where you want your marriage to be 5, 10, or 30 years from now?

Do you have common hopes and dreams for the future? This is an important question because, as Neil Clark Warren writes in The Triumphant Marriage, without a shared dream a marriage relationship “will eventually die.”

According to Warren, dreams inspire hope and thereby “stimulates the brain and mobilize the action center. Hope stimulates planning. Planning produces behavior designed to move you forward.” The end result is positive progress in a marriage relationship.

If you can answer “yes” to these three essential questions, Warren asserts, you have a healthy dream that will serve your marriage well:

• Is the dream equally inclusive of both you and your [future] spouse and your life together?

• Is the dream broad enough?

• Are both of you strongly committed to the dream you have for your life together?

What about your values and beliefs?

• Do you and your [future] spouse share the same values?

• Do you have similar religious beliefs?

• What is really important to each of you?

These are critical questions. Even secular counselors acknowledge the importance of shared beliefs and values in building a successful marriage. If you’re not sure what you value, ask yourself:

• What do I really want to be?

• What do I really want to do?

• What do I really want to have?

Get your [future] spouse to answer the same questions, and then discuss your responses together. What values and beliefs do your answers reflect?

What are you expecting out of marriage? What are the expectations of your mate? Ecstatic bliss? A romantic paradise? Do you both want children, and if so, how many? Do you expect to make enough money to build a dream house?

How realistic are your expectations and what happens when they’re not met? What happens when your relationship gets blah or boring? When it gets bumpy or bitter? What price are you willing to pay in order to have a great marriage that goes the distance? Are you both willing to make the relationship an absolute priority? Are you willing to be there for your spouse even through the bad times?

Is your marriage self-centered or God-centered? Is your 1st thought, “What will make me happy?” Or is it, “What will make my Lord happy and ultimately strengthen my relationship with my spouse?”

Do you approach your marriage as a contract or a covenant? The Bible clearly reveals that covenant oneness with your mate —oneness that is spiritual, emotional, and physical —is God’s ultimate goal and purpose for marriage. Two become one.

If you approach marriage as a covenant, you already have this built-in purpose. Your relationship with your spouse (next to your relationship with God) is the most important thing in your life.

If you approach marriage as a contract, however, you’re likely to emphasize rules and regulations over relationship. Many self-help books on the market offer practical rules for living with a spouse and promise that if you’ll just follow those rules, you’ll have a happy marriage.

The problem is, when you emphasize following rules over building relationship, you only breed resentment and rebellion in your mate. Rules without relationship equal disaster in a marriage.

Ask yourself: Have you been viewing your marriage as a contract or a covenant relationship? Is your marriage is purpose-driven —one that honors God? If it isn’t, we hope you’ll put forth the effort to do your part to make it one. As Dr. Lowery points out:

“Clearly we can no longer pattern our marriages after the people around us —if we ever could. Not only does the world not know how to divorce-proof its marriages, it is well on the way to making broken relationships the norm!

“If we don’t want our own marriages to fall by the wayside, we have to find a better pattern to follow. Fortunately, we don’t have to look far. God, the inventor of marriage, gives us everything we need to know about marriage in his Word, the Bible. Better than any earthly marriage counselor, he offers ‘divine therapy’ guaranteed not to fail: ‘I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you‘ (Psalm 32:8).

“For the sake of our marriages, we have to get with God, study the Scriptures, and begin to understand marriage as he created it to be: a sacred, permanent, covenant commitment. We have to get back to God’s original plan and work his plan. We have to be willing to die to ourselves and put our marriages and our mates above our own self-interest. Nothing less will do.”

Our love and prayers are with you as together we strive to make our marriages the best they can be.

Steve and Cindy Wright

— ALSO —

Here’s an article, we encourage you to read, written by Rick Warren (who inspired this Marriage Message), posted on the Todayschristianwoman.com web site:

(USA) Thanks Chris and Sandy. Your articles are so helpful for couples to better understand more about the importance of having a purpose-driven marriage –being on “the same page” together with Christ. Please know that we appreciate you. Keep up the good work!

Thank you for linking to us and we love reading what you write. It is great meeting others with the same passion.

By the way, I am on a 90 day challenge for God. I have a friend and mentor who told me that if I want to be a writer then writers write everyday not just when they are inspired to write. I felt that God was nudging me on a 90 day challenge to write 90 blogs in 90 days for him. Tomorrow will be number 45 in 45 days and it has been so awesome. God has shown me so much through this. Chris Benton